THE DAILY news out of Kenya these days is pretty terrible. Headlines tell of violent clashes between political rivals, murder in the streets, “ethnic cleansing,” chaos and suffering.
What, you ask, does that have to do with us here on the Canadian prairie? Our headlines, and our daily lives, are mostly focused on the extremely cold weather we’ve been having. What does political and social breakdown in some hot African country have to do with us?
Kenya is really a tragic story about the fragility of a democracy. Despite its record as one of the most stable democracies in Africa, things have deteriorated very quickly and unexpectedly.
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It’s a graphic reminder that taking shortcuts on processes, elections and laws can be shortcuts to disaster.
The Kenyan government is accused of taking several shortcuts to get its way. It skewed the election results, refused to follow legislated processes and is showing no respect for opposition voices.
Democracy is a precious but fragile system. It relies on citizens who value and defend it. And it depends absolutely on governments that obey the law and follow fair processes.
In a democracy, governments are elected to make the laws, not to break them. Laws can and must be changed. That’s what legislatures and parliaments do. And governments are elected to take the lead on those changes.
But governments that take shortcuts to implement their wishes by undermining democratic processes and breaking the law are harmful to democracy itself.
The debate about the Canadian Wheat Board raises these concerns. Whether you agree with the board’s monopoly on malting and export barley sales or favour an open market for barley, the democratic and legal processes for making any changes have to be followed.
The record so far is worrisome. From tampering with the wheat board directors elections to gagging the board during the barley plebiscite, some of the basic rules of democratic elections have been broken.
The government’s attempt to shortcut the legislative process by changing the wheat board’s barley marketing mandate through an order-in-council has been ruled illegal. A federal court ruled that the government had broken the law. The government’s appeal of that ruling will be heard on Feb. 26.
At the heart of democracy is an agreement to respect, and even work with, those who hold opposing views. By allowing only those farm groups that oppose the CWB to participate in his Jan. 29 consultation on barley marketing, the minister of agriculture demonstrated a profound lack of respect for all those farmers who do not want the CWB abolished.
Changing legislation takes longer than breaking the law. Following democratic processes is more complicated than taking shortcuts.
Respecting and dealing fairly with opposing opinions is harder than shutting them out. But that’s democracy.
And it’s well worth defending.
Nettie Wiebe is a farmer in the Delisle, Sask., region and a professor of Church and Society at St. Andrews College in Saskatoon.
